Observation/Reflection #2: Eyes in the Back of Your Head: Observing Student Actions From a seat in the rear of the room, observe your students and take notes on what they are doing while the teacher is presenting in the front of the room, while they are supposed to be taking notes, doing seatwork, and/or when they are working in the lab. Look closely at each student for a range of behaviors, and resist the temptation on only see what you expect. Note especially what is happening furthest from the teacher. What strategies are used by your CT to encourage students to attend and engage? Watch carefully how your CT moves around the room.
How important is student engagement to your view of how you will teach? What strategies will you employ to encourage student engagement? I have worked several years as a behavioral specialist, watching and recording behaviors of students, analyzing my findings and then planning and enacting some sort of appropriate intervention. In a classroom, we do this constantly and quickly. I have observed some differences between the high school and middle school classrooms. Some behaviors are predictable and consistent; others are naturally unique to the population, the time of day or the topic. In the middle school, I have observed one female student consistently drawing on her jeans and not taking notes. She draws these intricate and impressive flowers all along her pant legs. This class uses a science notebook format and the cover page consists of illustrations. Her notebook is void of these drawings. I would have thought that would be the one place, guaranteed, where she would participate. Others pick at nails, look about the room, focusing on taking notes or writing something down when the teacher explicitly says “Now, I would definitely include this . . because . .”. There is a quick flurry of activity and students who were daydreaming ask their neighbors “what did she just say?” Some students work diligently, reading a book once completed the seat work. Others quietly socialize and work together to fill in worksheets. The students furthest from the teacher seem to be the most whispering and generally distracted unless individually called upon. Ahh, high school: Lots of girls are primping their hair and nails and boys watching them. Several students have had this teacher before and as juniors, have been in several classes together since middle school. They are more outgoing and interact with one another and the CT more. From the one day I have observed, several of the students are more than happy to sit there and simply write down everything on the board. One male student had neither his book or notebook open, often making jokes and good naturedly teasing a few other students. This student in particular has had this teacher before and when prompted to answer seriously, he responded with correct and articulate explanations. Once not challenged, he was back to putting sticky notes all over his neighbor’s notebook and teasing. I have seen both CTs proactively calling on every student and explicitly explaining core concepts. They both move about the room and appear to see everything. Some things are quietly addressed with a touch to the paper. When some students are distracting others, the CT pulls them into the discussion or task with direct questions. The male student in the high school was allowed a few jokes and then was challenged to take the review seriously. It was apparent that both student and teacher understood one another and have a solid rapport. Student involvement takes work and is crucial to engaged and active learning. With classroom sizes ranging to 25 individuals with various interests, personalities and background knowledge, it can be difficult to engage all students all the time. I often wonder: where does one concentrate efforts and time? Should I have a song and dance every day? Should I make them sing and dance to each other? Knowing myself and my current style, I try to balance emphasizing what I personally think is really rad, what students need to know for assessments and why else they should care about the information. I tend to ask a lot of questions at first to gauge what sort of day some students are having. It’s really important to know your students when strategizing engagement. There are some that are just not comfortable talking in class, but this should not mean we never guide them to verbally articulate. I also know that when I am bored in class or I don’t understand something and am being silly by not asking for help, I tend to spice up the class with some humor. I think this is the case for the male in the high school. He is bored and not challenged in CP and has the luxury of goofing off and being the clown without failing to meet assessment expectations. I think regardless of teaching styles or personal philosophies, one has to quickly assess the function of behaviors and act in an appropriate manner. Is the student drawing on her pants because she doesn’t understand the material or because she would rather engage in artistic endeavors than learn ecology? How can we make this relevant and interesting to her? We can draw from multiple intelligences and what we learn about our students lives to give them opportunities to teach each other and to demonstrate mastery in ways that engage their personal creativity and talents.
From a seat in the rear of the room, observe your students and take notes on what they are doing while the teacher is presenting in the front of the room, while they are supposed to be taking notes, doing seatwork, and/or when they are working in the lab. Look closely at each student for a range of behaviors, and resist the temptation on only see what you expect. Note especially what is happening furthest from the teacher. What strategies are used by your CT to encourage students to attend and engage? Watch carefully how your CT moves around the room.
How important is student engagement to your view of how you will teach? What strategies will you employ to encourage student engagement?
I have worked several years as a behavioral specialist, watching and recording behaviors of students, analyzing my findings and then planning and enacting some sort of appropriate intervention. In a classroom, we do this constantly and quickly. I have observed some differences between the high school and middle school classrooms. Some behaviors are predictable and consistent; others are naturally unique to the population, the time of day or the topic.
In the middle school, I have observed one female student consistently drawing on her jeans and not taking notes. She draws these intricate and impressive flowers all along her pant legs. This class uses a science notebook format and the cover page consists of illustrations. Her notebook is void of these drawings. I would have thought that would be the one place, guaranteed, where she would participate.
Others pick at nails, look about the room, focusing on taking notes or writing something down when the teacher explicitly says “Now, I would definitely include this . . because . .”. There is a quick flurry of activity and students who were daydreaming ask their neighbors “what did she just say?” Some students work diligently, reading a book once completed the seat work. Others quietly socialize and work together to fill in worksheets. The students furthest from the teacher seem to be the most whispering and generally distracted unless individually called upon.
Ahh, high school: Lots of girls are primping their hair and nails and boys watching them. Several students have had this teacher before and as juniors, have been in several classes together since middle school. They are more outgoing and interact with one another and the CT more. From the one day I have observed, several of the students are more than happy to sit there and simply write down everything on the board.
One male student had neither his book or notebook open, often making jokes and good naturedly teasing a few other students. This student in particular has had this teacher before and when prompted to answer seriously, he responded with correct and articulate explanations. Once not challenged, he was back to putting sticky notes all over his neighbor’s notebook and teasing.
I have seen both CTs proactively calling on every student and explicitly explaining core concepts. They both move about the room and appear to see everything. Some things are quietly addressed with a touch to the paper. When some students are distracting others, the CT pulls them into the discussion or task with direct questions. The male student in the high school was allowed a few jokes and then was challenged to take the review seriously. It was apparent that both student and teacher understood one another and have a solid rapport.
Student involvement takes work and is crucial to engaged and active learning. With classroom sizes ranging to 25 individuals with various interests, personalities and background knowledge, it can be difficult to engage all students all the time. I often wonder: where does one concentrate efforts and time? Should I have a song and dance every day? Should I make them sing and dance to each other?
Knowing myself and my current style, I try to balance emphasizing what I personally think is really rad, what students need to know for assessments and why else they should care about the information. I tend to ask a lot of questions at first to gauge what sort of day some students are having. It’s really important to know your students when strategizing engagement. There are some that are just not comfortable talking in class, but this should not mean we never guide them to verbally articulate. I also know that when I am bored in class or I don’t understand something and am being silly by not asking for help, I tend to spice up the class with some humor. I think this is the case for the male in the high school. He is bored and not challenged in CP and has the luxury of goofing off and being the clown without failing to meet assessment expectations.
I think regardless of teaching styles or personal philosophies, one has to quickly assess the function of behaviors and act in an appropriate manner. Is the student drawing on her pants because she doesn’t understand the material or because she would rather engage in artistic endeavors than learn ecology? How can we make this relevant and interesting to her? We can draw from multiple intelligences and what we learn about our students lives to give them opportunities to teach each other and to demonstrate mastery in ways that engage their personal creativity and talents.